When were you shocked by the misogyny of the dating world?

I've always had some degree of alignment with FDS even before I found it but FDS definitely helped me refine my boundaries and made me develop new ones to better protect myself. There were a lot of things I did because I just didn't understand how they looked from the male perspective.

The big thing was cooking. I'm an excellent chef and I love to show off my skills, but it never occurred to me that men viewed this as me auditioning for the position of "wife." It's sickening in retrospect and explains a lot of the weird reactions I got from men when I shared my work with them. Cooking for a man (from his perspective at least) is crossing a major line in dating, he thinks you're trying to seduce him (Eww) and it's basically a low key proposal. Before FDS I definitely ghosted a few guys after their reaction to my cooking. Many of them just said (out loud) "Wow you must REALLY be in love with me," because even my low effort meals are bomb lol. No dude, this is just how I live 😂

I'm also a very frugal person and hate waste, so I tend to be a very cheap date. Again I never really considered the male perspective, they thought I was EASY because I didn't expect them to spend money on me when this couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm actually incredibly difficult. So of course they felt betrayed when they found out I was actually a hard ass with incredibly high standards. FDS really drove it home that I do need to make men pay. It's just another form of self defense. I could have saved so much time if I had just made my standards more consistent from the male perspective. I still don't care much about men spending on me, but I do care about making my standards clear, so now I make sure that I can never be accused of being a cheap date again.

the fact that i was very independent and capable yet still had a hard time attracting the "right guy". FDS reassured me that it was not my fault at all and men basically hate that i'm not easily controlled.

Honestly, I've always been shocked at the misogyny of the dating world. Way before I knew about FDS. I think the first time I noticed was when I was a girl (about 7/8) and one of my much older cousins came to visit. She was really pretty, had a good job, amazingly dressed, clean and in good shape. Her boyfriend was this total slob who was unemployed with bad teeth, dirty clothes, obese and smelled awful. I remember just being like, wtf? This doesn't make sense. And then I started really looking at all the other adults I knew in relationships and omg most of the men were actually repulsive. No work ethic, total scroungers with nothing to offer other than the audacity. And their girlfriends and wives were way, way out of their leagues. I was completely repulsed by dating and men because I thought, why would I want someone who has nothing to offer me and actively drags me down. I didn't feel like being taken advantage of like those women. The idea of being tied to a repulsive deadweight with no ambition made me feel sick. It was only as I got older (late teens) that I saw a few relationships that didn't actually make me feel sick. Some men actually have ambition, look after themselves and their health and don't hate women. Shocker! FDS has helped me to realise that good relationships do actually exist out there which are worth being in. It's helped to reinforce the importance of vetting and levelling up to me too! The handbook in particular really helped to solidify the ideas I already had about dating, while encouraging me to stick to my high standards and live my best life.

Many in little ways throughout the years past, but fds helped to articulate it all for me. it put into words a lot of uneasy feelings I had around men and their behavior.

you know the phrase that goes something like “if you’re surrounded by a**holes all day, then it’s probably not them. It’s probably you who is the a**hole”? I believed and applied that to dating and friendships. I thought there was something wrong with me that was attracting horrible men and strange hostility from other women all the time. I no longer feel like a person who is broken beyond repair just because of being naturally a little socially awkward and slow to pick up on social rules. This was absolutely huge for me!

it was such a relief-though I wish it were not that way-to find out that most men are lv and most women are also subscribed to the patriarchy on a subconscious level that makes them see each other as competition. Most men will treat women as badly as they can get away with. All this talk about equality and feminism from men made me think before that they did see us as somewhat equal. but now knowing what I have learned here-it becomes so obvious how much they look down on us. operating from this perspective makes it much easier to not put up with their crap or give benefit of the doubt to them.

I realized how much more acceptable it is for men to be promiscuous, have fun, go out every single night. As soon as I started going out to have fun, bars and drinks, I was getting sl*T shamed at home. I wanted to casual date people were so two-faced about it. "Oh you're a woman you can have anything you pick!" by day, misogyny by night.

Honestly the fact that a lot of the time before FDS I agreed with men when they said their ex was "crazy" I even got mad and developed this hate for my scrotes ex let's call her "emma". Mutual friends would tell him that Emma was still asking about him. I learned Emma would still text him. When we ran into Emma at an event, she was hugging him, stroked his hair, and being flirty with him. All of this happened when I was in a relationship with the scrote. Funny enough, I hated her like she was the devil, blamed everything on her, and then sided with him saying that yes she is so clingy and she's such a whole!

I'm so embarrassed for my former self but luckily I learned to be better. I side with women now. If a woman dumped a man, she definitely had a reason for it, especially considering that there's a lot of pickmes and it takes a lot for them to dump any guy.

A hvm wouldn't ever entertain his exes or put himself into situations which are sketchy or make you as his girlfriend/wife feel uncomfortable. His exes would be blocked. He wouldn't be going to her workplace or places trying to bump into her. If they have a kid or work together, he'd keep it professiona and classy - and he wouldn't be doing everything together with her either.

Another huge shock was a few months before I found fds - my friend introduced me to a dude and he said he liked me and bragged about how he had a successful company and made money. And then, he told me that I had to "earn a dinner". Hearing it phrased that way and being told so blatantly was really upsetting and felt so dehumanizing. It made no sense as to why someone that was so "successful and wealthy" was telling me I had to earn a cheap meal at a restaurant. It also made me feel like a dog who had to do a trick for it's master in order to get a cheap milk bone treat. I blocked him.